


Two Thirds

by CoffeeAndDreams



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: BAFM Q, Delusions, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, injured Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:34:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25701409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeAndDreams/pseuds/CoffeeAndDreams
Summary: Bond wakes up disoriented in MI6 medical. Unsure of where he is or how he got there, he takes a couple members of the staff hostage. Q tries to talk him down, but Bond isn't sure whether the Quartermaster is real of a hallucination.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 101





	Two Thirds

Q picked up the call from MI6 medical.

“Q here,” he said.

“Quartermaster, it’s Anna from medical. We’ve got a bit of a situation here. Can you pull up our unit on your surveillance cameras?”

There was a tension in Anna’s voice that made Q’s heart beat faster. A few taps on his keyboard and he saw the problem immediate. Agent 007 came back from Morocco in bad shape and had been in medical for a few days. A cut on his arm had gotten badly infected and he was ready to collapse by the time he made it back to headquarters, and even sought out medical care—unheard of behavior. Every time Q had come down to see him the agent had been asleep, but he was certainly awake now. He was awake, disoriented, and waving a scalpel around at the medical staff who were trying to convince him to calm down.

“Oh dear,” he sighed. “Any idea what set him off?”

“He’s running a fever of 40 degrees—he’s delirious.”

“I’m on my way. No one is to approach him, understand?”

Q jogged down the corridors and entered a scene of controlled chaos. Anna approached him.

“Thank you for coming. I honestly don’t know how he hasn’t passed out yet. He doesn’t believe anyone when we tell him where he is, and two nurses are in there and he won’t let them out. I don’t think he’d actually hurt them, but he won’t let them leave either. We thought you might be able to talk him down.”

“I’ll do my best,” Q said, patting the doctor on the arm. He looked through the glass panel in the door leading to the hospital room/hostage scene to assess where everyone was standing. He slowly eased the door open a couple of inches and said, “007, may I come in?” There wasn’t any response, so he opened the door and slipped inside. “I’m just going to come in, alright?”

Oh, Bond looked a mess. The agent’s eyes were wild and feverish. He was shaking, even the hand that held the dangerous scalpel (and there was going to be a serious discussion of about how he was able to get his hands on that). Sweat was beading along his forehead and blood was running down his hand from where he ripped out his IV.

“Q?” His voice was hoarse and unsure.

“Hello, Bond. It’s always something with you, isn’t it?”

“You’re not real,” Bond hissed.

“I promise I am,” Q said, slowly putting himself between Bond and the two nurses. Bond shook his head. “Tell you what,” Q said. “How about we let these two ladies leave and I stay with you instead.” Bond looked menacingly at Q, not liking the prospect of letting his hostages go. “You don’t want to hurt two unarmed women. Whether I’m real or not, I know you don’t want to hurt them. Let them go and we’ll talk it out.” Once he was reasonably sure that 007 wouldn’t lunge at them, he nodded to the nurses and they quickly left the room. Q took a deep breath, glad that the staff was out of harm’s way.

“Where am I?” Bond asked, his eyes darting around the room.

“You’re in MI6 medical.”

“No, I’m not. You’re lying…I’m…”

Q could see the confusion on Bond’s face, the way he was reassessing the space and trying to separate what was real from what was imagined. It hurt to watch the struggle, to know that it was years of waking up in unfamiliar and hostile places that had wired the man’s brain to react this way. It was like working with corrupted software—he needed to go back and try to find where things last worked properly.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Q asked.

“What?” The question seemed to throw him.

“Take your time and pinpoint the last thing you remember clearly—that you’re sure was real.”

Bond’s eyes narrowed like he thought Q was playing a trick on him, and his hand tightened on the scalpel. But slowly, slowly, he began to review the events of the last few days.

“I was…I was in Rabat.”

“That’s right,” Q said.

“I made it to the airstrip.”

“MmHm.” Q nodded encouragingly. Bond’s brow furrowed. The airstrip seemed to be as far as he could get. “You made it back to London and I had a car bring you to MI6. The wound on your arm was infected. You had a fever and you’ve been in medical for three days.”

“No. No! That’s not right,” Bond said, getting agitated again. “I’d remember that. You’re lying. Why are you lying to me?” he growled, a dangerous flash in his eyes. Q held up his hands.

“Okay, okay. It’s alright.” He needed to try a different approach. Maybe he could just keep Bond talking until he passed out from either exhaustion or dehydration. He looked so ill and tired. He was also a double 0 agent though; he had uncommon stamina. “How do you explain my presence if this isn’t MI6?” he asked casually.

“You’re a hallucination,” Bond said, but he didn’t sound completely convinced. “I’m being held somewhere and…and you’re not real.”

“Well, if I’m not real, the scalpel really isn’t necessary, is it? Might as well put it down.”

A tense silence came over the room. Bond seemed to be weighing the options of putting down his weapon. Just when he thought they might be making some progress, Bond shook his head and tightened his grip on the handle. He looked frustrated and lost. Q took a calculated risk and sat down in the visitor’s chair against the wall and crossed one leg over the other.

“You’re running a very high fever,” he said as gently as possible. “I know it’s making it hard to think clearly, so I’m just going to sit here with you until you’re able to piece it together. Keep your scalpel if it makes you feel safer. That’s fine.”

A very small amount of tension left Bond’s shoulders. Q was still a little concerned he might bolt for the door, but he was much less concerned that the agent was going to spring on him.

“I don’t suppose you have any of your equipment left, do you?” Q asked. He decided to try familiar conversation topics. Something subtle shifted on Bond’s face.

“I had my gun when I got on the plane. I don’t know…I’m not sure where it is now.”

“I’ve got it. They checked it in for you when you got back to MI6. And those very nice prototype sunglasses?”

“They broke,” Bond said slowly. “I took a chair to the face and I think that’s how I got this,” he said, tracing a gash across his forehead with a finger.

“Well, I suppose I didn’t design them to withstand chairs,” Q said with a smile. “So, two thirds of the valuable things I sent out into the field were badly damaged. Not our worst ratio, but not our best certainly.”

An odd look came over Bond’s face: his head tilted and it was like he was seeing Q for the first time. He blinked and looked around the room several times. Then, as if nothing had happened, Bond put the scalpel down on the floor and sat down on the edge of his bed. Q stood up and got the weapon and slid it under the door. Next, he got a clean sweatshirt from the pile of MI6-issued sweats in one of the cabinets. Bond’s was a mix of sweat and blood, and he pulled it over his head before slipping the clean one on.

“Not that I’m complaining, but what finally got through?” Q asked quietly. Bond winced as he swung his legs up onto the bed and allowed Q to cover his lower body with a blanket.

“You said two thirds of what you sent in the field came back damaged.”

“Right.”

“If you have my gun, that means it was the sunglasses and me that were damaged.” He kept his eyes focused on his lap. Q frowned; he didn’t get it. “You couldn’t be a hallucination. My own mind would never categorize myself as…well, you had to be real.”

Q felt his heart clench.

“Oh, James,” he sighed. Q sat on the edge of the bed and put a hand on his forehead. While it was under the pretense of checking his fever, Q also knew it was the most comfort the older man would likely allow himself. “You’re absolutely burning up,” Q said. “Can I please bring the doctor back in?” Bond nodded and Q went to let the staff back in now that it was safe. Bond expected him to leave, but Q dragged the chair over and sat near the head of the bed.

As the nurse was putting in a new IV, Bond apologized quietly, obviously embarrassed. She patted his arm and told him not to worry. This was MI6 after all; she assured him she’d seen much worse. Anna came in next and smiled,

“How are you feeling 007?”

“Better. I apologize for—”

“No actual harm done,” the doctor said. “Now, let’s see about getting this infection under control, shall we?”

Antibiotics, fever reducers, pain meds, and a mild sedative were all injected into the drip bag along with his fluids. After that, the medical team cleared out and left the two men alone in the room. Q was typing on his mobile while Bond was fighting sleep. When he finished his message, Q looked and met his agent’s tired blue eyes.

“R’s bringing me my laptop and a cup of tea. I’ll work from here,” Q said.

“You don’t need to.”

“I know.” He put a hand on Bond’s forearm. “Stop fighting the medicine and go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.


End file.
